Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Arrr, Let Us Plunder In a Socially Acceptable Way

I worry about pirates. Not that I’ll be attacked by them, but that they’ve become, well, pansies.

With the popularity of the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean movies, pirates have become mainstream. In fact, Disney now has an MMO based on the Pirates franchise (http://apps.pirates.go.com/pirates/v3/welcome if you are so inclined).

Pirates, it seems, are more popular than ever. Herein lies the problem. Pirates have been sanitized to protect the children. They are no longer the foul smelling, grog-guzzling, murderous bastards we came to know and love. Now they’re heroic fighters against evil. They have, dare I say it, morals.

Case in point, the Disney MMO does not allow you to shoot people. That’s right. Here’s a line directly off their website:

“The Pirate Code strictly states that pistols may only be used against the undead (Jolly Roger's Skeletons as well as those unholy creatures he has cursed), and must never be used against people –– be they other Pirates, townsfolk, the Royal Navy, or the East India Trading Company Black Guard.”

Apparently, pirates are now vitally concerned about the morality of shooting someone. Oddly enough, you can still stab people in the Disney game, which seems like a rather strange double-standard.

I am saddened by this. The thing that made pirates cool was the fact that they were outlaws. They ranged across the seas, stealing, fighting, and blowing things up. They knew perfectly well that if they were caught, they’d be executed, but they did it anyway. These were hard men.

Now, they’re kid-friendly and morally opposed to shooting people.

Unfortunately, pirates seem to be going the way of the ninja. Ninjas used to be silent, deadly assassins, now there are cartoons about them (In Naruto, an insanely popular anime, the young ninja hero wears an orange jumpsuit. I thought the idea was to blend in, not stand out like a street sign, but what do I know).

I guess I’ll have to find another group of vicious killers to idolize.

Oooh, Conquistadors. It's fun to say and as you pointed out, nifty hats!

Snipers are a good choice and are actually already pretty popular. Every other Military Channel special is on them and they are one of the most popular classes in online frag fests. And fun to say too!

I'd have to go with the Norse (not limiting it down to vikings). Either that or the Hashshashin who were the original assassins(as it was derived from their name). Both did much killing and had some rather interesting ideas about things in general.